Thermal insulation materials are used to minimize the heat exchange between an object and its environment. In this way undesired heat absorption from the environment as well as heat loss into the environment are avoided. A thermal insulation system is often comprised of several material layer with air layers in between. The thermal insulation effect achieved is given in terms of thermal resistance. The thermal resistance values of the materials themselves are calculated from their thermal conductivity and thickness values. Thermal conductivity values from the individual materials have often already been determined and published. Otherwise they can be determined using existing methods. The total thermal resistance of an insulation system can then be calculated as sum of the thermal resistance values of the individual materials making up the system. Because the thermal insulation system normally consists of more than a single layer of material, air layers are often exist between them. Air is generally known to insulate well, but it is difficult to calculate the thermal resistance of an air layer. The reason is that different heat transport mechanism can be activated in the materials themselves. Therefore, the contribution of air layers to the overall thermal resistance of the insulation configuration can basically only be estimated. Besides this, the heat transport through the complete insulation system, hence its overall thermal resistance, is also influenced by the type of heat exposure (radiative heat, convective heat or conductive heat) applied to the system. If other types of heat exposures come into play then that under which the calculations were made the calculated insulation effect could be inaccurate. In some instances changes will also need to be made to the construction of the insulation system already on the market. A solution of this problem would be the testing of complete insulation systems instead of their single components after their construction and before entrance into the market as opposed to testing individual components separately in order to determine all the necessary heat transfer characteristics of the system with various types of heat exposures and thermocycling processes applied. The test results would then indicate the true thermal performance of the finished insulation product which would help avoid design shortcomings prior to final production. Measuring methods allowing insulation products consisting of several material layers exposed to various types of heat exposure to be tested in a single apparatus are presently not available.